Many people don’t know the best procedure to speak into a walkie talkie for the best sounding audio.
It’s very important to use the right procedure because it helps people to understand what you’re saying without having to repeat your message.
The two most common problems are talking too close to the microphone, and talking too far away from the microphone.
Talking too close to the microphone causes pops and wind noise on the microphone and is annoying for others to listen to.
Pops and wind noise from breathing can make it more difficult to understand what you’re saying.
People might complain about bad audio quality and won’t want to listen to you for very long.
Talking too far away from the microphone is a far worse issue.
Background noise will often be louder than your voice and people won’t be able to hear you at all.
People will constantly have to raise their radio’s volume to hear you and then lower it again when people using the radio correctly start talking.
Your transmissions can be very difficult to understand if you’re in an environment that might cause echoes,
or it might just sound very muffled, causing people to struggle to understand you.
If you’re using analog radios, then talking too far away from the microphone is an even bigger problem
because on analog you get noise added in to your audio as it goes over the radio channel.
If your voice is too quiet because you’re too far away from the microphone, then people will struggle to hear you over the noise.
Let’s do a test.
I’ll be holding the radio in different ways and reading a few standard phrases in these tests.
See how many you can understand.
The answers will be shown at the end of each part.
After you hear these clips, I’m sure you’ll want to use the radio in the right way,
and I’ll be showing you exactly how later in this video.
So let me show you how to use correct radio placement for good audio.
You should hold the radio approximately 8 to 10 centimetres or 3 to 4 inches away from your mouth.
Do not position the radio directly in front of your mouth,
as this causes pop noises when you make certain sounds.
Position the radio slightly to one side, so it is not in the stream of air when you’re talking.
Hold down the push to talk button for about 1 second before you begin talking
to ensure the other radios have unmuted and begun passing your audio.
Once you have finished talking, let go of the push to talk button to allow other people to speak.
You should now be using your two way radio correctly, which will give you the best performance and efficiency in your communications.
To recap on what we covered in this video:
1. Don’t speak too close or too far away from the microphone.
2. Hold the radio about 8 to 10 centimetres or 3 to 4 inches away from your mouth.
And 3. Hold the radio slightly to one side of your mouth, so that you’re not breathing directly towards it.
This reduces pop sounds and breathing noises.
Thanks for watching this video.
Feel free to navigate back to this video in future if you need a refresher on correct radio practice
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